Talk in English - US at CascadiaPHP 2024
Track Name:
Multnomah Falls
Short URL: https://joind.in/talk/8b747
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Join us as we explore the intricate world of developer experience (DevEx) and its profound impact on the software development process. This talk will delve into the critical components of DevEx, including documentation, tooling, API design, developer support, performance, and reliability. You’ll gain actionable insights and strategies to help your organization create development environments that foster productivity, collaboration, and satisfaction among developers.
Key topics will include the evolution of software development methodologies, the intersection of user experience (UX) and DevEx, and an in-depth exploration of the essential elements of DevEx. We’ll also discuss practical approaches to improving DevEx, share real-world examples of organizations that have successfully transformed their developer experience, and examine future trends and challenges in DevEx.
In today’s complex and competitive software development landscape, developer experience is no longer a luxury but a necessity for attracting top talent, driving innovation, and staying ahead in the industry. As the line between UX and DevEx continues to blur, understanding how these aspects intertwine and contribute to the success of software projects is crucial. With the rise of remote work and distributed teams, providing developers with the necessary resources, tools, and support has become even more critical.
This talk will inspire you to recognize DevEx's vital role in the software development process and adopt best practices that create a synergistic environment where developers and users can thrive together.
Comments
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I'm actually hesitant to review this talk because I am the opposite of an unbiased observer. I was practically vibrating throughout this presentation with the desire to jump up and down shouting "Yes! Yes! Yes! This is what I've been on about for literally YEARS!!!".
I'm so impressed by this speaker. Their knowledge of the subject matter, ability to deliver it persuasively, and the real world positive impacts they've already had in creating systemic changes with the potential to have cascading ripple effects throughout Open Source communities and the commercial interests which utilize our technology and employ our expertise are such a gift.
Historically the value of our community created software and our hard won skills and wisdom are worse than undervalued within for-profit organizations. Too often we are treated as disposable resource nodes, to be maximally extracted from and discarded when we become inconvenient. That's a recipe for traumatized engineers, broken technology, and bankrupted businesses; and it's far from the only or best way to go about creating and maintaining software.
Rain provided a great synopsis of key pillars to a better way of doing things, and although I might have been the choir they were preaching to, I have high hopes that they also hooked some converts. I definitely look forward to learning more from this outstanding human in future.
The level of passion Rain brings to this subject was palpable in the room. Qualcomm is lucky to have them advocating for their software engineers. I don’t know if they implement PSR-8, but my paternal instincts were certainly to offer one at a few points early in the presentation before they got settled into a bit more of a groove.
I think the concepts they were espousing in the talk are spot on. This is the sort of environmental awareness around the development experience we need managers and leaders to be exposed to and thinking of as they develop processes and structure organizations.
A concrete addition to a point of discussion that came up at the end occurred to me as I was driving home: the fifth pillar also has some feedback loop aspects of it, the automated metrics coming out performance and reliability. Whether it’s load times, or crash counts, or sales metrics, or even the horrid daily active users, there are lots of things that can be used to prime a feedback loop and gets devs a dopamine hit… or conversely if not handled well by leadership can produce a solid dose or norepinephrine (or maybe cortisol is the better analogy here?).
I thought this talk would be entirely theoretical to me. I don't work in a company with an external-facing dev interface, so it doesn't apply to me, right? Right??
NOPE. As Rain so eloquently pointed out, the proper perspective for developer experience is like ... the experience of your developers? Whether they're internal or external. WHETHER THEY'RE EVEN DEVELOPERS (or just users) 🤯. And there's so much value to be cultivated and banked when you take care of your users – all of them, be they seated in front of PHPStorm or your SaaS screen or whatever "Python" is.
Bringing the full weight of their experience and expertise to bear, I got both philosophical and real-world takeaways. Just some fascinating content coupled with a compelling delivery. I wish there were more thumbs with which to up.
Extremely entertaining talk from a dynamic speaker — can definitely use some more detailed examples of good DX vs bad DX so we can start going down the correct paths.